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Contents

Synopsis

A "sex shop" opens in Beverly Hills. Brandon, Steve and David patronize the store, under the guise of covering the controversy for the newspaper. Brandon infuriates Kelly by defending the store and its clientele, and attending a wild bachelor party for Muntz. A misunderstanding causes David and Val to fear that they are having problems with their sex life. Steve decides that he is interested in Janet after she expresses her philosophy on free love. Donna discovers that her assistant, who has very low self-esteem, calms herself by cutting her arms with a razor. She tries to convince her to seek help. Donna asks women of normal measurements to appear in her catalog because she believes that using models would send the wrong message. Kelly is revolted when Jackie opts to get a face lift and Erin frets about calories.

Recap

Brandon and Steve find themselves in varying degrees of hot water with Kelly and Janet over two major events: the opening of a new Sex Shoppe in Beverly Hills, and the forthcoming nuptials of Steve's old frat brother friend Muntz. IN Brandon's case, Kelly is already angry about female body issues for reasons having nothing to do with him or the sex store: her mom is planning to have cosmetic surgery to remove some saggy skin around her eyes and her younger sister Erin is dieting to achieve a perfect model-think look. She grills Brandon over the Beat's article on the sex store controversy and other matters, annoying him and making it clear they still aren't really in sync after their reconciliation. However, Brandon's fair article on the store impresses Kelly--he says the business owner is correct that he has every legal right to be there, but consumers can simply get rid of the place by not buying any of the stuff--and she ends up surprising him by bringing home some items from the store, noting that if they can bring them closer it's not a bad thing. For Steve's side, he's very surprised to hear that Janet is fully in favor of the store and that she has a healthy sexual appetite to boot, but Janet reiterates to Steve that his chance to find out about that firsthand was gone after his lousy date behavior at the West Beverly High School reunion.

Donna ends up dealing with a much more serious and dangerous image issue while she's conducting her first big fashion design show since she got fired from Child's Play. A shy assistant makes a mistake that has Donna screaming at her, and after Noah points out she overreacted, Donna goes to the assistant and sincerely apologizes. The assistant does good work but Donna becomes worried about her and learns that she is a "cutter" who deliberately wounds herself with a sharp knife to relieve psychological strain. When an arrogant photographer breaks her heart over a date she was excited about, she plans to escalate her self-mutilation, but Donna talks to her and prevents this. Donna then fires the size-0 models for the shoot and tells the assistant she's going to be one of the "normal women" taking their place for the show.

And David and Valerie end up at mixed signals over the sex store, before finding it is not that bad a place.